Off to the Races
by Silverseeker24345
Summary: Love for Mai and Joey was a gamble, but they liked it that way. Crime/gambling au, written while listening to Lana Del Rey. Polarshipping is the main couple. I don't own anything. There mighhhhhht be a character death later


**Off to the Races**

**Chapter 1/Prologue**

There is so much trust in a bared throat, pale, open, vulnerable, wanton. I could easily bare my teeth, bare my cross, bare my hate for this, for us, for him right back. I could sink my fangs into his throat and tear it away with ease. Instead, I choose to stain him with a different red, a more dangerous kind, the kind that would linger. I wanted it to spread through him. I wanted to stain his blue blood ruby. I pressed soft red lips down his throat and work to the juncture where his shoulder meets his neck, smearing my lipstick along his torso, pretending its blood to gain my own satisfaction. He responds in kind, fisting my blonde hair and pushing me down where he wants me, enjoying a satisfaction of his own. I could kill him. I wanted to kill him.

I did kill him, slowly, working myself into a pleasant frenzy. I had delivered the poison, we just had to let it sink in. It was burdensome, it was a chore, but it was all I could do to save something much more valuable. The brunette looked up at me after our act of violence, our war between bodies, and I wondered if the affection in his eyes was an indicator of the illusion I had painted. He had no idea of the game we played. If he were anyone else, I would have felt sorry for him, but I knew better. I know better. I kissed him fully on the mouth, stroking the side of his face.

"I should go, before he catches on." It was far from a lie. This was the part where I went off script. Somewhere, the best thing that ever happened to me was waiting for me, and the only way to save him was to get close to the enemy. The only way to save him was to hurt him. He knew the risk, and he knew the plan, to get close to The Dragon. Sex was sex, there was no love, and this was a matter of life and death, but I could keep the sex to myself. It was the best weapon in my arsenal, and I would use it to protect him and to take down the dragon if I had to. So he would let me go, watching me get ready to go, putting on my red lipstick that stained someone else's skin. My red dress being so delicately zipped up for me by his big strong hands was our goodbye; who took it off for me was just business. My business.

Joey's hands were strong, but they were never used as an object of war toward me. They were rough with work, his palm calloused with powerful and dexterous thick fingers that would be used to brush across my cheek with a fragility like nothing else I had ever known. Unlike the harsh hands that struck me after my claim, hands that were the antithesis, frail but harsh, bony and unforgiving.

The Dragon was never too keen on being reminded that I was with someone else. I winced, and looked down. He then grabbed me by my shoulders, forcing me into a rough kiss. I wanted to bite his lips off. Instead, I kissed back gingerly, a fallacy that made my stomach churn. If I showed him my malice, it could have been all over for me.

"Now, Seto, you know that I have my reasons to be away from you." I brushed his face with my knuckles. I had gotten onto first name basis, a triumph. The closer I got, the sooner we could be set free. He wrapped his arms around me, and I had to push down my disgust. Somewhere in his expression, I almost pitied him, but to underestimate him would be the biggest mistake I could make. I knew his type too well. It was the same song I played on the streets, in the clubs, only with much more riding on it. The best way to make him want me, was to not let him have me. Not all of me.

"My mother must be turning in her grave. I've fallen in love with a dirty whore." I smiled softly as he let me go. He always had a way with eloquence to throw his vernacular like daggers in a piercingly accurate way. He always hit his target. But I was playing a game of my own, and this was a tactic that was nowhere new to me. The fact that he felt the need to diminish me meant he needed to feel that I needed him. "A beautiful whore, but a whore nonetheless." I was winning.

I thanked him for his backhanded compliment, playing that girl he needed and pulled him into a heated kiss that he must have taken for desperation before leaving the room, going back to my room in nothing but my lacy black lingerie with my beloved red cocktail dress, now torn to rags in my grasp. Kaiba was never a gentleman. Not the way Joseph was.

Joseph who may have lacked that eloquence, and instead used his intelligence in other ways. He may have been a cheat and a thief and a dirty liar, but so was I. He had a warm and gentle compassion that made his charm raw and real. His words lacked the etiquette and still they charmed me more than anything else ever had. He was an honest liar, and I loved him for it.

I entered our refined penthouse suit the floor below, going straight to the shower. The bellhop never even blinked an eye at me, but then, this was becoming our regular interaction. Joey would be heading up from business at the casino soon and while he knew I was romancing The Dragon as a distraction, there were some things he could go without knowing, things I had to wash out of my hair. I threw the soiled lingerie into the fire pit on the balcony, along with my favorite dress, struck a match, and watched it go up in flame, deciding to wait for my real lover in our shared bed in nothing but a smile, just the way we both liked it.

The front door creaked open to our suit, and I heard him shuffle in. He was hardly quiet after a grueling day, though he somehow managed to be pretty slick despite the fact. I smiled up at him demurely, my long legs crossed, and my long wet hair tied up atop my head. I kept my gaze locked on him, watching his eyes travel across my body, his pink tongue coming out to lick his chapped lips, a wide grin cracking across them.

"Did I keep you waiting?" He loosened his tie, taking in the way my chest would rise and fall. I pouted at him, fluttering my eyelashes the very best I could.

"An eternity, baby." He laughed, and I swear it sounded like sunshine. But then, that's what he felt like, staying awake through a hard night just to watch those first few rays of the sunrise. He was my brand new day, a new chapter, and I loved him then, and I love him still. He kicked off his shoes as I raised my hand and crooked a finger at him, beckoning him toward me.

He was on me instantly, kissing me, breathing me in, pinching and grabbing, getting as much of me as he could feel. This time, instead of feeling constricted, I needed to be closer to him. I went for his tie, loosening it the rest of the way and discarding it. He looked up at me with his warm brown eyes.

"I love you, Mai." I brought him up to kiss me more fully, stroking his jaw with my knuckles. He was everything I needed, everything I wanted. I had no idea how much time we had left together. We promised forever, but we both knew the stakes were being raised. Any day, I could come home to him with a bullet in his head, any day he could find me the way Kaiba's last mistress and club singer, face down in an Olympic swimming pool. Whatever happened, we spent every moment we could together.

When Joseph made love to me, he was always rough around the edges, raw, needy, and warm. He always wanted to be able to see my face. He went with his intuition, letting the waves of pleasure intoxicate us, and every time was familiar and every time was new. He breathed a new life into me, and I knew that no matter what I did, we would be okay, because we had one another.

We lay together until the sun began to rise over the city. His arm was wrapped around my waist, tracing circles into my hip. I kept my hand over his heart, feeling his erratic cocaine pulse thrum beneath my palm, a reminder of the life flowing through his veins. It was a new day. We both had made it another night. And we were one step nearer to taking down The Dragon, one step closer to fortune. One step nearer to eternity.

Maybe we were ambitious, maybe we were crazy, maybe we were greedy, but it was time for us to take back that high life, that flight. With him, I never had to crawl again.

A/N I don't own anything in regards to Yugioh or Lana Del Rey's music. This is fan made. I would love some feedback, but for the most part I'm just writing for fun.


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